ALL NOVEL chapter 25
25. Philance Blue is My Older Brother 2
Philance Yellow’s room is a little bare for a middle schooler’s room. This is my third time here. My first impression was of a cute, energetic little sister. The next time I visited, I witnessed firsthand the reality of the “Yandere” that heroes have. And this time, I’m here with the desire to correct her misguided “love” as soon as possible.
“Yes, now no one will see you anymore. Should I use a knife? Scissors? A ballpoint pen? A pin? I also have nail clippers?”
As if choosing a game software for a friend who came to play, she cheerfully lists words that sound ordinary but feel dangerous when combined with Yandere. Judging from the fact that she still has a belt around her neck, that must have been the most orthodox method for her.
“hehehehe, I’m sorry, big brother. To ask you to do it myself… I’m being selfish, aren’t I? But this will make you happy, and I’ll be happy that you love me, and I think we’ll both be happy.”
It’s a line that could get her into some kind of legal trouble, depending on how you interpret it, but Himawari cheerfully lines up the dangerous weapons she just mentioned on the desk.
“Himawari”
When I call her name as I sit on the cream-colored cushion on the upper seat of the low table, Himawari stops her hands and turns to me.
“What is it, big brother?”
“You don’t have to take out the tools.”
She thinks for a moment with a ballpoint pen in her hand, then brightens her face and comes next to me.
“Okay.”
She sits down on the carpet and looks at me with an expectant face. I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before. It’s very similar to the face my family’s Shiba Inu makes when I’m about to throw a ball.
I don’t have time to think about such trivial things. “I’m going to touch you for a bit,” I say, and pull out the belt hanging from Himawari’s neck. Just one side, of course. The belt makes a small scraping sound and falls to the floor.
“You don’t need this anymore.”
Himawari stops with a blank look on her face. Then, as if she’s starting to get anxious because she doesn’t understand my intentions, she starts clicking the ballpoint pen she’s holding in her right hand.
“Listen, Himawari”
She looks at my face with a frightened expression. When she’s about to be subjected to violence, she has an expectant look on her face like a puppy being played with, but when I try to stop it, why does she look so anxious? Seeing Himawari’s childishly inconsistent behavior, I start to get angry at whoever it was who made her this way.
“I don’t know who taught you this, but I can’t enjoy hurting you, and I can’t love you by doing that.”
The sound of the ballpoint pen stops abruptly.
“I don’t want to hurt you. Do you understand?”
“….Why? Do you hate me now?”
“N-no. I don’t hate you. I told you, I could never hate you.”
“I don’t understand. Because this is what it means to love, right? Hurt me a lot, have fun, and then you’ll like me a little bit, won’t you? I’m a bad sister, so I don’t know any other way. This is the only thing I know…”
There’s not a trace of mockery in her expression, just confusion. It’s the kind of agitation you feel when your common sense, which you believed in until yesterday, is suddenly denied, or when you’re told something unbelievable.
I got carried away and went straight to the main point. Himawari is more hurt than I expected. I had a feeling this was the case, but the form of love and attachment must have been ingrained in Himawari in a jumbled way. What kind of “love” has she received in the past to make her like this?
“That, hurting someone, isn’t something you do to someone you love. …At least, I don’t want to.”
If I could, I’d like to persuade her with some cool words, but I’m still a college student who doesn’t know much about society. I may be much more mature than Himawari, but this topic is too heavy for me I don’t know how far I can go in negating Himawari’s common sense. If I had known I’d have an opportunity like this, I should have paid more attention in ethics class.
“Then how do you love someone, big brother?”
“Well…”
That’s a difficult question. It’s definitely not about strangling someone with a belt, stabbing them in a soft part of their body with a ballpoint pen, or cutting them with a knife. But how do you convey love? I have no idea.
“W-words, maybe…?”
“Words?”
No good. Shallow. All I can come up with are shallow answers. Why haven’t I had a proper romance until now? To be honest, I don’t understand the sacredness of loving someone. I’m not interested in romance movies either. The girl in front of me doesn’t know how to love properly and has a distorted desire, but I’m too stupid to do anything about it.
“Or, like, doing a lot of things that the other person wants you to do…?”
The only other thing I can think of is physical contact, but if I say that, I’ll sound like a pervert who wants to grope Himawari. And didn’t that last line come a little too close to the future-predicting Himawari? Damn, I’m too scared to know which one will set off a landmine.
“I suggested it because I thought it was something you’d want me to do… I messed up again.”
I feel like comforting Himawari as she sulks, but I can’t think of a good answer.
“Listen, big brother. I want to tell you that I love you a lot, and I want you to like me. But I don’t know how to do that, so I don’t know what to do.”
I see. The root of Himawari’s problem is that she’s afraid I don’t like her. So she tried to win my favor in her own way. For Himawari, violence is a proof of love, an easy way to get someone to like her . It’s an unthinkable idea from a common sense point of view, but she probably doesn’t have the knowledge or experience to know that it’s wrong.
“Well, if you don’t understand something, just ask me. But for now, could you please stop doing things to hurt yourself like today?”
“…Yes. I understand.”
So that’s why she was acting so out of control, because she didn’t know what to do. When I think about it like that, it’s pretty simple, and I can even see a little bit of what I need to do.
“Just to make sure, do you want to hurt me, Himawari?”
“Wh-What!? O-Of course not!”
“Okay, that’s a relief.”
If Himawari’s way of expressing her affection was through violence, then if we kept getting closer, there was a risk that I would eventually become the victim of that affection.
“I’m the same as you, Himawari. Even though I care about you, I don’t want to hurt you, and I want you to be happy and healthy forever. Please don’t forget that.”
As I said it, I felt a little embarrassed by how much I sounded like an older brother. But that’s what she wanted, so I figured I should act like Himawari’s older brother.
“So, big brother.”
“Hmm?”
Himawari looked at me with a slightly dissatisfied expression. Was she not happy with my answer?
“How can I get big brother to love me? What should big brother do for me to think that I’m loved?”
That’s right, I had gotten sidetracked and avoided giving her a real answer. But even so, I had managed to get across the most important thing I wanted to say, which was that it’s not good to act out of love with violence. For the violence rest, I wanted to keep things as inoffensive as possible. More than anything, I didn’t want to make some kind of scummy demand like, “If you do this, I might love you,” so I wanted to avoid giving her a specific answer.